


Drowning

by Potboy



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4951738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potboy/pseuds/Potboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How could two such painfully sincere and caring people ever end up in this situation in the first place?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

TJ's coming out of bay 4 with a tray of monitoring equipment when a tall civilian walks right into her. The woman is extremely beautiful and well turned out, and she has a face as stiff as armor plating. Her voice makes TJ feel three inches tall, even though all she says is, "I'm sorry. Excuse me."

She plunges away down the corridor like a shot from a zat, leaving TJ with the impression of the kind of seething anger that sometimes floats on the top of tears. TJ rotates round the door of the staff room, pushing it open with her back, and raises her eyebrows at Terri, staff matron. As usual, they're short of personnel at HQ, and TJ is doubling as a nurse while she waits to get posted to a more permanent station.

"What was that about?" she asks, because it's been a while since she's seen a woman so polished and so stylish and so furious.

"Room A's wife," says Terri with an eloquent shrug. "Stormed in, gave him an earful and stormed out again."

"Room A as in the guy on the ventilator?" He was new in yesterday. She's heard he's one of only two survivors of an attack on some outpost she's probably not supposed to know about. Yesterday, there'd been some doubt about whether he would be a casualty too - he'd breathed in flames. The inside of his lungs had been seared like rare steak.

By his good fortune, however, a visiting Tok'ra had been able to use some piece of alien tech to reverse the injury. What's left is treatable by Earth medicine, and he's now expected to make a full physical recovery, in time. "Are you serious?"

Terri's already flipping through readouts on her computer, as if to say that they've got fifteen patients in and she doesn't have time for emotional dramas. "Happens a lot," she says. "Like parents smacking their kids around the head when they run out into the street. 'Don't scare me like that,' that's all it means."

Room A has a chart that says 'pass on to psych when fit.' He was the commander of a lost base, he's responsible for the deaths of thirty odd people whom he presumably knew pretty well. They expect him to suffer from survivor's guilt at best, PTSD at worst. Suicide cannot be ruled out.

"Does _he_ know that?" she says, "Because I'm not sure how clued up these guys are, in general, about the nuances of women's emotional communication."

Terri laughs. "Good point," she says. "But his mental welfare is psych's job. We just patch 'em together and send 'em back out again."

That's pretty brutal and not what TJ signed up for, so when she has a spare five minutes she picks up his chart - Young, E. Colonel - and sits down on the visitor's chair by the edge of his bed.

"Hey," she says, smiling as gently as she can. Although he's now off the ventilator, only hooked up to an oxygen lead and an IV, he still looks like he could do with a bit of gentle right now. "How are you?"

He's a good looking guy in the masculine style that TJ prefers, but she doesn't like to see any of her patients display the kind of misery and despair that seems to have settled on his mouth. "I'm fine."

"Right.” The reply is so cliche it's kinda cute. "By which you mean that you feel terrible but you don't think anyone cares, and you don't want to damage your macho credibility by pointing it out."

TJ likes her men a little on the older side. Enough so they've had time to develop some self-awareness. She approves of the weary hint of humour in his eye when he actually brings himself to look at her for the first time. "Right," he admits, breathing carefully. There's a pause for some kind of internal debate and then he adds. “It hurts like hell."

That's progress. She wants to give him a cookie but settles for smiling, and making a note to adjust his meds. Already there's something lighter about his face, as if just this tiny conversation with someone who cares has given him relief. At that thought she's angry all over again with his wife. Natural though her reaction might have been, it certainly can't have helped.

"I met your wife in the corridor," she tries, as if this problem too is a pain for which she can give him more analgesics. "She ran right into me."

"She worries," he says, but he's turned his face away and that little spark of amusement has been snuffed out. _Tactical error, Tamara._ Obviously he didn't need to be told that it was a sign of care at all. Equally obviously he hasn't enjoyed being reminded of how that touching reunion had gone down. Mysteriously, TJ feels almost insulted by the fact that nobody seems to blame his wife, except for her.

"Maybe she could find a more productive way of expressing it than coming in here and shouting at my patients."

That at least makes him laugh, a scarcely audible exhale that turns into a soft cough. He looks at her for a significant moment, like a trapped animal waiting to be put down. Her heart thumps once, heavily, when he decides he can trust her. "She wants me to leave the program," he says. "She doesn't like me being away all the time, coming home hurt. Always having to pick up the pieces. She says she can't do it any more."

Perhaps there's something to what Terri says, TJ thinks. One day she should cure herself of opening these cans of worms, because now she feels terrible too, on his behalf. "Well," she stretches her sympathy to the utmost, but she's still indignantly aware that it's not the wife who's lying here fighting for every breath, "it must be very hard for her. Have you thought about leaving? I'm sure you could get a good job, outside."

"Sitting in an office," he says, as though he means "buried alive."

She could point out that lots of people are perfectly happy in lives that revolve around sitting in offices, but that would be hypocritical. If a guy told TJ it was him or the practice of medicine, she'd choose medicine. And even though E. Young's career seems to be killing him right now, this also seems like a really bad time to take the purpose of his life away.

Thankfully, it's not her decision to make, so she drops it, changes the subject to one where his despondency might not end up killing him either. "I guess going through the stargate must be hard to give up,” she says with some wistfulness. “Is it amazing out there? The guys come back with all these stories, but word is I'm stuck on Earth for the foreseeable."

As she'd been hoping for, the change of subject brings back his ghost of a smile. "It's, uh... Not always good. But it's..." he's getting tired, labouring for the words, and she's - she looks at her watch - she's stayed at least twice as long as she meant to. "It's important."

If she can't solve his problems for him, maybe she can help simply by giving him something to make it through the day for. "I'm going to come back tomorrow and you can tell me about some of the good things. Okay?" she says, trying not to sound artificially cheery. "I want to hear about everything I'm missing."

It comes out sounding sincere, but then it _is_ sincere. It's hardly going to be a sacrifice to spend a little time talking to an attractive man about his adventures in outer space. She's looking forward to it, to be honest. And if it reminds him he has something to live for too, what could possibly be the harm?

 


	2. Chapter 2

While the Goa'uld tech does its job, they keep down the inflammation on his lungs with corticosteroids. The fast regeneration of lung tissue is theoretically a miracle, but in practice it seems to be acutely uncomfortable and he's also on dosages of morphine that they wean him off slowly over two weeks.

Two weeks is a long time in combat medicine and although she only means to visit once a day, she finds herself calling in on him at the beginning and end of her shift, sometimes missing her normal bus home.

Terri's been looking like she's working up to saying something, but if she does, TJ can point to her results. Young was a shade when he got in, and under her care he's gained colour and energy and a kind of lazy dry wit that she finds delightful.

He doesn't talk a lot, especially in the early days, when it hurts him, but he listens well. She ends up telling him more about the intrigues and annoyances of her life than hearing about the galaxy, though there's an ice planet he's found that he wants to go back and ski on, which sounds amazing.

And yes, sometimes on the bus home she'll find herself arguing with Terri in her head. Sometimes the memories of her father will ride in the seat next to her and peer at her with a cautionary gaze that she has to fend off in mental conversation.

It's Thursday today. If there are no relapses, he should be good to be discharged tomorrow, and she's fretful as she leans her head against the window and watches asphalt and streetlamps and the concrete boxes of ugly buildings flick past. Because she shouldn't be upset about that. She shouldn't be downcast at the fact that he's clearly eager to go home.

 _He's a psych risk,_ she tells imaginary Terri. _He needs better monitoring than that self-absorbed wife of his is going to give him._

Emily. She knows the name now because Emily features a lot in Young's conversation. He's been slowly chewing over the choice he's been given, going through the same information over and over, as though there's a solution here that means he doesn't have to give up one of the things he loves. He's just got to find it somehow. He's just got to keep working the problem until he solves it.

TJ could tell him it's not that kind of choice, but it wouldn't help. And anyway – imaginary Terri points out – it's not her business either.

_He's still my patient,_ she counters, and then has to laugh at herself, because imaginary Terri's got a point. TJ shouldn't really be obsessing over him like this. She shouldn't have let herself notice his shoulders, and the shape of his collarbones and the depth of his chest. She especially shouldn't have allowed herself to take these thoughts home with her for her private amusement. But – she winces as the bus jostles over a pothole – it's not like he's ever going to know about it. He's being discharged tomorrow. She won't ever see him again, and on balance all the imaginary people agree it's for the best.

Being sensible about it doesn't stop her from being in a foul mood when she checks in early on Friday. She expects to have time to get coffee and maybe blue jello – if SG1 haven't stolen it all – from the canteen, but she's barely got to the scrubs lockers before she hears the yelling. She drops her purse and runs.

He's trashed his room. He's turned over the heavy bed and flung the monitor and IV equipment on top of it. He's broken the mirror in the ensuite bathroom and he's wedged himself into the far corner of the room with a long sliver of glass clutched as a dagger in a bleeding hand.

Emily Young is by the door, like a pillar of polished steel, with one hand over her mouth and the other pressing her bunch of car keys to her chest.

“Oh,” Terri jogs up behind TJ with a rueful expression, “I fucking hate the flashbacks.” She rotates her wrist to show TJ the syringe she's holding and nods her forwards. “You keep him talking.”

“Should I call for help?” Emily asks, reaching out for the intercom on the wall.

“No ma'am,” Terri rubs at the roots of her cornrows as though they ache. “Generally if we send soldiers in to subdue them more folks get hurt. You let us handle this.”

TJ doesn't know where Young is, what he's seeing, as she edges in, keeping eye contact so that Terri can casually slip into the shadow of the bedside cabinet. From the fear and confusion in his face, he's not entirely sure either. She doesn't belong in whatever memory this is.

“Hey,” she says, gently as she'd said it first, buzzingly aware that he's probably faster and certainly stronger than she is, sickeningly well versed in the expert knowledge of what that sharp shard of glass could do to her, if he loses his tenuous grasp on himself.

“You're not in any danger. We think you're having a flashback. How about you put the knife down and let me bandage up that cut?”

That doesn't fit with the narrative replaying itself in his head. Far too slowly, his brow creases. He looks down at his hand as though he didn't expect to see it there. That's when Terri lunges out of hiding and buries the needle in his arm. He has barely time to look back at TJ with dog-like betrayal before he's out.

Maybe that's why the next thing she does is turn to Emily in tightly focused anger and say “What the hell did you say to him now?”

“Excuse me?!” Emily hisses like a storm goddess, lightning in her eyes.

“TJ!” Terri snaps simultaneously. “Shut your mouth.”

“She's the one who chose a time like this to tell him it was her way or the highway.”

There's a strange slip, a shift in the orbit of the planets. TJ doesn't know what it is at first and then she realizes that Emily is truly looking at her for the first time. Emily is examining her and not approving of what she sees.

“I don't have to justify myself to you,” Emily says with icy dignity. “But this is hardly the first time this job has sent my husband back to me thinking he's in a war zone. You've got drugs and nurses and soldiers on call to deal with it. He's got you and all his buddies and the general and your councillors and your therapists. What have I got? I've got me.” The set of her mouth looks briefly devastated before it firms back up into resolute. “Someone in this situation has to think about _my_ welfare, and currently the person  doing that is me.”

Later, after they've manhandled the room back into order and hauled Young. E's sedated carcass back into bed, long after Emily has accepted TJ's shamefaced apology and driven home alone, Terri takes TJ to task. “I don't know what you were thinking,” she says, “but girl, you can't talk to a colonel's wife like that. If she comes after you there's not a thing I can do about it. You want to watch yourself.”

By that time the adrenaline's worn off and TJ's quick sympathy has had time to point some things out about Emily Young. She certainly wasn't lying. Young's records show he's been hospitalized three times with major combat injuries. Emily's lived through this kind of trauma enough to wear anyone down.

Plus, she's a civilian. What happens when  _she_ wakes up in the middle of the night to find herself alone with an armed and dangerous man, whom she loves, who thinks she's the enemy?

As one woman to another, 'in sickness or in health' be damned, TJ can't blame Emily for finally saying enough. She probably should do the same herself.

He's discharged the next day. TJ makes a special effort to be at the other end of the building, checking the first aid kits, when Emily comes by with the car. She pauses only briefly by the empty room with the bare breeze block visible behind the empty frame of the mirror. She doesn't feel like she's dodged a bullet – she feels disjointed, disappointed, like it shouldn't have ended like this.

But it has, so eventually she braces up her shoulders and runs to catch the bus.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

After three weeks fails to take the edge off her discontent, TJ tries to shake it by going on a date with Cabot, one of the command track lieutenants she'd seen now and again in training. It's not a great success. He's mild on the eyes, with a kind of rakish, russet-haired charm, but God, he's such a child. He thinks he's got to impress her by bragging about his test results and his guns and his knowledge of fine wines that she's pretty sure he just googled on his phone while he was in the toilets. Plus he looks so unconvinced when she says she'd rather not go out again that she's probably just added a campaign of wooing, aka harassment, to her problems.

Still it won't be the first time she's had to deal with a guy who thought he could charm his way past her no. If he doesn't find out the easy way that unwanted persistence just makes her angry, he'll find out the hard. It's just that it doesn't help. It doesn't help to divert the turn of her thoughts away from E. Young with his genuine heroism and his quiet acceptance of ill fortune, and the way he would fight his way out from under a world full of misery over and over so he could genuinely pay attention to her.

Maybe she's building the guy up too much in her memories, making him into some unattainable ideal to disguise the fact that the attainable ones are not worth having. But she's got to have dreams, right? Even if they ache.

Actually she's thinking about stethoscopes when she sees him again. One's missing, and she's checking to be sure it hasn't fallen into the filing cabinet in the office when he says "Hey," behind her.

Such a heavy man shouldn't have such a quiet tread. She grasps the runners of the draw, cold metal crisp against the palms of her hands, and uses the sensation to fight down the natural startle of shock and the far less welcome rush of nervous, conscious want. Can't do much about the blush but she's otherwise composed when she turns around.

Oh - it's the first time she's seen him upright. He's shorter than she is. It's... wow, she would never have imagined that would be something she'd find cute in a guy, but she does. That's ... sweet, almost.

Imaginary Terri points out that she shouldn't be using the words 'cute' or 'sweet' about a colonel at all, and she scrambles for her self composure a second time. In fact Young looks physically fine, healthy, with the lines of pain smoothed from his face and a bulldog swagger to his gait.

"It's nice to see you up and about." She remembers the 'sir' just in time. Really she needs to get a grip, because her heart is doing double time under her ribs and it's hard not to sound breathless and this is still none of her business. Except - he's pressed and brushed down and polished like he's just come straight from the general's office. She couldn't find out from psych how he was doing, not without revealing an interest. They wouldn't have told her anyway, so she doesn't know if he's made his decision or not. She really wants to ask.

"Are you shipping out again?" she tries, casually, and she doesn't know what she wants to hear. He should say no, she thinks. He should say no, he's taken Emily's ultimatum on board, he's just here to resign. Then TJ could go back to being safely downcast.

"Yeah. [I](mailto:I@m)'m heading out in a few days," he says instead, and her treacherous limbic system fills her with a swell of joy, as if the sun has broken off the top of Cheyenne Mountain and is pouring its golden light in to fill up all the space inside. He's chosen the job.

She's really not sure she should be this pleased, and she's fighting not to grin when he takes a sheaf of papers from his inside pocket and offers them to her.

"I... Uh." He looks at her feet, rubbing the back of his neck, which she recognises as a sign of him trying to say something embarrassing - something that needs to be said, but which he has to labour to force out. "I don't know if I'd have made it through those first weeks without you."

For some reason the reassurance makes her want to cry. What with Terri's disapproval and her own doubts, she'd wondered if she'd done the right thing by getting so involved. But if it had helped - if it had stopped him blowing his brains out or quietly opening his wrists in the shower - then she had. She _had_ done the right thing.

"It was..." It wasn't nothing, she can't say that. But at the same time, she has researched this since and she also can't say 'that was only the acute phase. You've got plenty of misery still to come.' He presumably knows that better than she does, if he's been talking to psych.

Fortunately he's still struggling with his own words and doesn't notice her grappling with hers. He gives up trying to communicate gratitude, and falls back into informational with a tone of relief as she takes the papers.

"You wanted to be posted to space. This would be a start."

It's an application for transfer to a small, un-named offworld base, via spaceship. Homeworld Command prefers to keep its medical staff on Earth if it can, and this... it's like gold dust. They can't put it on your references, of course, but if you've been off-world they make something else up that pretty much guarantees you a place at any medical school of your choice.

The crinkle against her chin alerts her to the fact that she's pulled the papers in toward her heart. "This is just to say thank you?" she asks, overwhelmed and delighted, but with a little twist of uncertainty behind it.

"Partly. Also I've gotta choose personnel who are good at what they do. And I already know you are." He shrugs, almost like he's apologizing, then stirs himself out of his stillness to leave. "Think it over. There's a four day window to apply, so - up to you."

She watches his back as he walks away. Couple of steps in and he slumps, like his ghosts have caught up with him, settled soft and weighty on his shoulders. TJ rolls the papers between her palms, presses the tube to her lips as she thinks. This is... well it opens everything out. A stint at a base is a stepping stone to more exciting posts in the air force, or a ticket out to study medicine. She'd be an idiot to turn it down.

The edge of the papers grazes her lips as her mouth curls up into a Cheshire cat grin. Spaceships and exoplanets and genuine field medicine! And, you know, maybe someone she can talk to sometimes. When they're not both too busy. He's going to need a lot of support if he's going through a separation and dealing with PTSD at the same time. It's good that she'll be there to make a difference.

Her future is suddenly radiant with promise. She's very glad indeed that he chose the job.

 


	4. Chapter 4

TJ spends the first month on Icarus base hugging herself with glee whenever she goes out of doors. Okay, the planet is a rock, but it's still an alien world lightyears away from home. It's the coolest place she's ever been. Plus, its naquadria core puts out heat like you wouldn't believe. When she goes hiking in the hills around the base, she can feel the planet breathing. Every crack in the rock puffs out scents of pear-drops and copper. Sometimes it rains, and the water that falls in the potholes boils there, and when the sunlight shines through the steam the whole damn valley below the outpost becomes a sea of rainbows.

She'd thought it would take a bit of getting used to - maybe even be harsh and uncomfortable - adjusting to the knowledge that Young was now her commanding officer, but it doesn't feel like that. He's mostly in his office, or showing visiting dignitaries around, or dealing with the disciplinary issues that arise when you've got a whole bunch of energetic young people a long way away from home with not very much to do. First few weeks, she really doesn't see much of him at all.

On a day to day basis she works for Dr. Simms. He's the one who tells her what to do, the one she thinks of as her boss. And he is wonderful. He's always got time to explain the principles behind what he's doing, or clarify something in the extensive reading list he's set her to study.

They're not exactly rushed off their feet here. The officers spend a lot of time arranging training exercises, football and baseball matches. They try cook-outs, figuring that the planet's heat could be used as a barbeque, but everything tastes of mercury when it's cooked, and Dr. Simms makes them throw it all away.

TJ gathers that the team of scientists who spend all their time around the stargate snapping at each other are trying to open the gate to something even more unknown than your usual other galaxy. And then Colonel Telford's team will go through it and see if there's anything useful on the other side. After an initial surge of awe about how amazing that would be, however, it starts to look obvious that the scientists are not going to crack the problem any time soon. Telford's team - who are all pilots - get stir crazy bored and start practising high velocity manouvering in their F-303s.

Their whining engines are annoying as they tear screeching overhead, peppering the quiet days with sonic booms. They race to fit themselves under the natural rock bridges ten miles to the east, compete to see who can most nearly clip the perimeter wall without smacking themselves straight into the mountainside.

At first she doesn't think more of it than that. Then one morning two of them try the same trick at the same time. The first doesn't pull up fast enough. The second clips its wing and destabilizes it. The pilot can't pull it out of its tumbling spiral and ejects just as it slams itself into the rock. It goes up in a fireball and falls on his chute, and he and it plummet five hundred feet and land like raining magma on the seventh south gun platform.

Young's the first on the scene. He doesn't wait for protective gear, face mask, breathing apparatus. He just sprints straight into the fire, and her blood runs cold because she thinks that must be how it happened last time - how he ended up on a ventilator in HWC. What happens if he gets a flashback in there? There's not going to be a Tok'ra to save him this time.

But then he's out again, with the smouldering parachute wrapped around Major Hale, who is miraculously more or less alive, stumbling forward thanks to Young's shoulder under his arm.

TJ and Dr. Simms race to get to them first, but marine sergeant Greer beats them. He's got two privates and a stretcher with him. Dr. Simms takes charge of piling Hale on it, speeding him to the infirmary. TJ turns to Young and stops, or the world stops around her, because it's clear from his eyes that he's not sure where he is.

"Let me see your hands, sir," she says, rather than give voice to any of the pity or fear for him that she feels.

He holds them out obediently and she takes him by the wrists and turns the palms up into the light, hoping that the physical contact will be grounding. Square mark, livid white, on the heel of his right hand, where he must have punched the buckle of the pilots harness to release Hale from the seat. It's a second degree burn.

As she's holding on, he shudders. "TJ?"

"Sir,” she says again, feeling the title sit oddly in her mouth. "You need to come to the infirmary to get this burn seen to."

"Is he going to be okay?"

_Oh,_ she thinks again, as empathy turns her inside out and leaves her raw in the face of pain. _You lost them all, didn't you?_ "I think so," she says, forcing herself to smile. "Dr. Simms will know for sure."

Hale has vertebrae damage from the ejector seat, broken ribs, superficial burns on his face and hands, and will need to be invalided home with the next transport, but he'll live.

Over the next week or so, TJ is conscious of a sea-change in the atmosphere of the base. She can practically feel the military adopting Young. Those who hadn't served with him before hadn't been sure of him. He'd been brusque to them, and up until now there's been a kind of watchful wariness as they waited to find out what kind of a commander he really was. Now they've figured out that he'll put his life on the line for them they're starting to think of him as a safe pair of hands.

TJ wants to go along with the general praise, but she isn't so sure. “Given the injuries I treated him for at HWC,” she says to Dr. Simms, when she can't worry about it any longer without a second opinion, “it just seemed very pointed somehow. As if he was trying to atone. And – maybe it's just a medical view, but I don't feel it was terribly healthy.”

“Mm,” Dr. Simms nods over the cultures of native bacteria he's incubating to study. “Well, a combination of duty and suicidal impulses leading to a tendency to throw oneself at situations offering the possibility of a heroic death wouldn't be contraindicated in a case like this. The worst thing about combat is that it gradually leaves a person psychologically unfit for anything else. If you feel that kind of deterioration occurring, perhaps it looks better to die soon, while you can still tolerate yourself.”

She doesn't make a noise of protest about that, but only because she puts a hand over her mouth and squeezes her nose tight so nothing can slip out. “That's awful,” she says, when her voice is level again. “Isn't there any kind of effective treatment?”

Simms looks up from his Petri dishes and gives her a smile, aiming for wisdom but flavoured with something bitter - maybe experience. “The man wouldn't be here supervising training exercises if the powers that be were not aware that his judgement is suspect, but not suspect enough for him to be forcibly retired.”

He shrugs, and she wonders what happened to _him._ He's not usually so chilly. “In those circumstances, taking the pressure off for a while can be enough for them to work through it for themselves. Beyond that? No. We wish them well, and we hope that if they fuck up, they don't fuck up so hard that they take us with them. If psych isn't helping, there's nothing the rest of us can do.”

Dr. Simms probably knows what he's talking about, but TJ doesn't care, because she's going to try anyway. She kept Young alive those first three weeks, she can do it again. So she doesn't feel at all bad about noticing when he leaves the mess that evening, and 'accidentally' bumping into him in the rubble of the 7S gun platform.

It's been cleared of wreckage and the scorch marks scrubbed away. The rail-gun was trashed by falling fuselage and can't be replaced until the next transport arrives from Earth, so it's empty, just a ledge of rock above a valley where the wind furls endlessly over the empty geyser holes in a mournful pan-pipe moan.

Not a great place for a man to stand who already looks like he's being sucked under by a sea of melancholy. “Hey,” TJ says, and then isn't sure what to follow it up with. This is the first time she's sought him out with no real reason to do so, and she's very aware that it's going to look weird.

Young startles. For an unguarded moment there's an expression in his eye that almost looks like fear. He recovers fast, but it's too late – they're already on shifting, personal ground, and it seems like they're both conscious of it. “TJ,” he says, after a pause. “What can I do for you?”

“I just came to find out how you were,” she says, hot with embarrassment and want. This is ridiculous. It's getting out of hand, and she shouldn't have come, but she can't just leave now without drawing more attention.

“I'm fine,” guiltily, nervously, he takes a step back, like he's going to make a break for it. Why should he be scared of her, she wonders, and then the answer rolls over her with a flood of erotic joy and a realization of power. Maybe this thing between them is not as one sided as she'd thought? Maybe he wants her too?

Obviously that's not going to happen, but it's nice not to feel so pathetically stalkerish, mooning over a man who doesn't realize she exists. To be liked back makes this a shared secret, a little pact that they have between them. Nothing they need do anything about, but something to savour nevertheless.

“Right,” she's suddenly grinning. “You're not at all standing here reliving what it's like to cook yourself from the inside out.”

His retreat hasn't managed to take him through the door, and this stops it under the lintel. He ducks his head and snorts, smiling. “That obvious?”

“It's my job to notice,” she says, and sits down on the only part of the low barrier wall that remains. A shifted stone slides and then tumbles into the valley below, the clicking staccato of its fall clear against the fluting of the flowing wind. “If it's any comfort, everyone was very impressed.”

“Yeah?” he stuffs his hands in his pockets, gives a little jerk of the head that says 'no big deal.' “Anyone would have done it.”

“Maybe.” Something quieter but even more insistent than the attraction settles into a hum of satisfaction as he leans a shoulder against the door jamb and relaxes. They're just talking. They're having a chat, like they used to do twice daily in the infirmary in Home World Command, and she's only just realizing how much she missed that. “Fuentes said he wished he had, so he'd get toasted enough to be sent home.”

“I wish I knew what was up with him,” Young's look is as relieved as she feels – relieved that they've found solid ground again, relieved to have someone to talk to, and perhaps relieved that he's not, after all, standing up here with only the voices in his head for company. “His record's impeccable, but he's been picking fights ever since he arrived.”

“His father's dying,” TJ says, surprised. “Didn't he tell you? I told him he could apply for compassionate leave, but...”

“Yeah, that involves talking to Camile.”

Camile Wray, the IOA representative and Human Resources lady sits uneasily in their heirarchy, and she has a passive-aggressive way of being concerned for you that makes you feel like she thinks you're some kind of infant. The military have a tendency to avoid her when they can and resent her when they can't.

Young gives TJ an amused glance and stretches in a way that does nothing to make her less conscious of the breeze's sticky damp heat. “Okay. I can let Camile know Fuentes needs to ship out. Anyone else's problems I ought to hear about?”

One problem he's solved just by looking at her with that tiny glint of appreciation in his eye. She's not crazy and obsessed and alone after all. That's so... yes. It's welcome. She's going to take the thought away and unwrap it properly in private. But for now, maybe she can help the rest of the garrison with stuff they gossip about at meal times to her, but don't dare pass up the chain. She recognizes and admires the fact that he cares about these people enough to take that information and use it well.

It doesn't have to be any more than this. They can make it work at the level of friends, confidantes, if that's what they both want, and there's an undeniable thrill in walking even this close to the edge. TJ's always been a such very good girl. This makes for an exciting change.

 


	5. Chapter 5

One result of Hale's accident is that, not wanting any more casualties, the officers dial back the intensity of their war games. They try to take up the slack with extra drills, square bashing and cleaning - cleaning the place until it shines - but it's not a great success. Icarus is a secret base. None of their enemies even know it exists, so everyone's sure there's not going to be an attack any time soon, if at all. As the year draws to a close, everyone also starts to lose hope that the nine chevron stargate will ever be opened. The posting starts looking like a combination of boot-camp and beach holiday. Pretty soon, it's not just the fly-boys who are jumping out of their skins with boredom.

That's probably why everyone starts hooking up. Gossip in the mess hall shifts from speculation about what's behind the gate to rumour about who's getting laid and who by. Maybe it's TJ's face, or her manner, or some idea that telling a doctor doesn't count, but everyone wants to confess all to her. She's well informed about the large cave a click away, down on the survey of the area as 'natural sauna' that's being used as a gay bath-house, and which of the civilians is easiest, and which of the officers pays in perks.

TJ's hardly shocked - she been in the forces long enough to know that public image and private practice are sometimes poles apart, but she does wonder how much of this she ought to be passing on. None of it, she decides. Nothing unless it's abuse. If it's forced then yes, she's going to call it out, but the rest of it, well... it's been a long and fruitless posting and nobody has anything better to do.

It's not until she accidentally walks in on James and Scott that the atmosphere starts to get to her personally. They're both friends by now, so she doesn't begrudge Scott that sated cat-like saunter, or James her half-moon smile, but... Oh God, it's been a long time. It's been a hell of a long time wanting and not getting and telling herself she can't.

How come everyone else gets to do it and not her?

After long enough on station, she's almost forgotten that she's ever lived anywhere else. This is their world, their solitary, insular society, a long way away from rules and regulations, where the arbiter of everything is Young. She's not going to deny that knowing he has the ultimate power here makes him more attractive. So she likes men in authority, so sue her.

Anyone would think they were having an affair anyway - they have to be so careful about meeting up to talk. One or the other of them will drop the location of where they mean to be just after dinner next day, and they vary the spots to try to minimize suspicion. He tends to pick balconies, so he's close to base in case he's needed. She picks hill tops so they get a walk out of the deal. That's nicer because it feels less watched, more like she doesn't have to compete with the whole base for his attention.

He doesn't talk about Emily as much any more, but she's disconcerted to find that things are moving far more slowly there than she'd expected. Emily hasn't even moved out yet, which seems oddly ineffective for such a determined woman. Maybe with Young away she feels she can take her time to find the right place to go. Or maybe she's going to claim the house and make _him_ find somewhere else.  Talking about Emily is depressing and makes both of them sad, so they gradually move on to other things.

It's nice to have a friend, but it would be nicer to have a lover. Who's going to tell anyway, TJ thinks sometimes, when she's angry and frustrated and everybody seems to be having great sex apart from her. Who are they going to tell? Telford? There's something about his smirky self-assurance that nobody likes, and besides, he's Young's friend. He'd cover up any rumours in a heartbeat. Camile? As a matter of principle, no one's going to air a slip of military dirty laundry to her.

Anyway, they'd be careful. No one would notice. No one would know.

She's got to admit sometimes she imagines it. She's pretty sure he does too. Only that morning she'd gone out to the main gun platform to get some sun and by chance he'd been there alone, and he'd turned and he'd given her such a smile. Two parts shy and one part filthy dirty. It had all but cut her off at the knees. She doesn't think he knows he was doing it, but she's been hiding in the infirmary ever since, miscounting pills.

She's clear what she wants, but she can't quite bring herself to reach for it.

"Hi!" Corporal Barnes  sticks her head round the door, making her jump and drop the carton of aspirin she's holding. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. Birthday bash at the marines rec room in five. Bring the rest of the medical staff and any Earth liquor you might have in your possession. There's absolutely not going to be any illicit home brew. And snacks."

He's at the party. He's brought whiskey, but when he sees her there he turns and takes it away with him. TJ stays and dances too much, and drinks just enough to make herself brave. When she wanders out at midnight she tells herself she's going to her own bed to sleep it off. But she doesn't think either of them are at all surprised when she ends up going to his room instead.

~

They're together a little over a month, all told. Looking back on it, TJ still remembers it as one of the best periods of her life. The job is great, and the sex is great, and she's having such fun connecting with a free-spirited, wild side of herself that she barely knew she had and she _loves_ that she doesn't really notice until afterwards that he's maybe not as wholehearted about the whole thing as she is. 

In hindsight she should maybe have noticed that they stopped talking, that she caught him more often being worried, guilty, silent. But then he's so good at covering up what he feels. He's so good at ignoring issues until they blow up in his face that it honestly shouldn't have come as a big surprise when one evening she lets herself into his quarters, she goes to kiss him and he pushes her away. 

“What?” she says, looking down at the heel of his hand – the one that was burnt – pressing far too unyieldingly against her breastbone. “What's wrong?” 

“This has got to stop,” he says, brusque and military like a fucking coward, not meeting her eyes. “I can't do this any more.” 

It throws her for a loop. She literally feels her brain miss a step and stumbles as she goes scrambling after it. It's a joke, maybe, because they've been building up to this for over a year and it can't already be over. Maybe she hadn't been thinking about the future because the present was occupying her full attention, but no. No, they've got something real here. “We've only just started. Why would we stop?” 

He does that fleeing thing again, getting the desk between them. He looks miserable but she's not in any mood to be sympathetic to that. “Emily--” he starts, and she really doesn't want to hear it. 

“Emily's leaving you,” she says, clenching her cold hands behind her, leaning forward as if to better press this through his skull. She didn't realize this before but she's sick to death of talking about Emily. “You've known that from the start. But even if she wasn't, what's it to her? She doesn't have to know.” 

It's an outrageous thing to say, but right now she's feeling outraged, hot, ready to take on the world and his nerves and get him back. 

“I told her.” 

“What!” he's not making any sense. She paces from the plastic chair in the corner of the room to the strip of neon on the other wall because if she doesn't move she'll explode. “You _told_ her? _Why_?” 

God, he's an idiot! She can actually imagine how that could happen. He feels guilty, he's been brought up on honour and glory, so he thinks the thing to do is confess, beg for forgiveness, promise it will never happen again. In other circumstances, maybe she could get behind that attitude, but right now Emily's leaving him anyway, so what the hell is the point, if not to just make everything worse? 

“I'm married to her.” 

That's where she really loses it. “Oh!” she snaps, “Well maybe you should have thought about that before you started.” 

It falls into the room like a boulder. She can almost hear the crash. It sits between them like a stone.

“Yeah,” he says finally, his face blank, but something cowed about his shoulders. “I should.” 

There's still a small part of her that wants to make him feel better, but she's currently furious with that part. She can't do expressionless, but she can bare her teeth at him while the tears prick at the back of her eyes. Her quick mind supplies her with all the logical reasons he could use to convince her that he's right to do this, counterarguments that all boil down to _but this is what we both want_! But she's got more pride than to argue with him. She doesn't want to be with anyone who doesn't realize that being with her is a fucking priceless gift, not a second best. 

She barely recognizes the frozen arctic flatness of her voice. “So what now?” 

He doesn't much like being shut down, shut out, either. He takes his head out of his hands and flicks her with a look of appeal, like he's asking for help with this. “It's not just Emily,” he's trying to sound rational about this, and it's neither the time nor the place. “There's our careers. Your future. It's not fair on you.” 

She could say 'maybe you should let me be the judge of what I want to risk, of what's fair to me,' but what would be the point? She's already decided she's not going to plead. “Yes _sir_ ,” she says and watches him flinch. Out of the two of them, she's well aware that she's the stronger. “What are my orders?” 

She gets a scholarship out of it. It's to the school she would have picked for herself if she'd ever considered going for unattainable dreams. If she was him, with his unrealistic, highfalutin principles, she'd probably throw it back in his face and claim that she wouldn't be bought. But she's not. _She's_ not going to sacrifice the rest of her life to make a point. _She's_ got more sense. 

Of course, that's when Destiny intervenes. 

~ 

Now it's later, after they've stretched off the stiff cold of three years in stasis, and he still comes and finds her on balconies – or in this case on the observation deck, watching the new galaxy fall away beneath them in streamers of light.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and she lets her newly re-forged smile quirk up at the familiarity of it all. 

She stopped being angry pretty early on, after he'd tried to throw his life away a couple more times, and she'd got over her grief for Dr. Simms long enough to remember that he'd warned her. To remember that maybe it wasn’t fair of her to get involved with a man who she knew was unstable and then blame him for making bad decisions. She should have seen it coming. 

“Sir,” she says. They're a long way from Earth and 'sir' is not the weapon it once was. In this hybrid crew it's more of a term of affection, authority, than it is of command. 

They are neither of them the people that they used to be, and on balance she's pleased about that. Hell of a lot of pain they've both endured, but they came through. Maybe she never loved him, he never loved her in the domestic home-and-family way their alternates had on Novus. It doesn't really matter. What they have now is deep and quiet and undemanding, and she's just glad it's something she can be sure of again. 

“I know you want Varro,” he says, looking out at the universe like someone who's made his peace with it. It's a shift, if they're going to be talking about _her_ other half for a change, but it doesn't feel strange. “I just... uh.” 

He puts his hand on the rail like he's calling on Destiny to give him strength. Since the ship has given both of them assistance over the years, that's not a vain hope. “We didn't end well. I was a jerk, and I wanted to--” he looks at her like he's expecting a rebuke, and she smiles. She's very used to him now. 

He was indeed a jerk when he was aggressively pretending not to care, but she’s had time to realize that he handled the breakup like an alcoholic handling a drink. Not one drop. Not one flicker of recognition that they’d ever meant anything to each other, and all because the yearning hadn’t gone away and never would, and he had to be on his guard. She can forgive him when she thinks of it like that. 

“I wanted to say thank you,” he carries on, uncomfortable and earnest. “I was drowning and you tried to haul me out, but I-- I pulled you under. I'm sorry.” 

It _is_ a love, though. If a way back to Earth opened up right now and he stayed, she'd stay with him. She wants Varro, he's right about that, but it doesn't mean this clasp of souls between Young and her is coming undone any time soon. Even if he _is_ still trying to apologise for the wrong thing. 

“Maybe I wanted to save you from drowning,” she agrees.  “So let’s not forget that I succeeded.” She claims her victory with a grin, “Yeah, we're a little battered, but we're both still here. I call that a win.”

**Author's Note:**

> If the shift between “that’s when Destiny intervenes. ~ Now it’s later,” in Chapter 5 seems a bit abrupt, it’s because the entire series and the talk they had in my fic ‘Fixing It’ comes where the ~ is. I didn’t want to rehash stuff that had already been done.


End file.
